White Paper

The Essential Revenue Assurance Checklist

Revenue assurance helps CSPs get rid of revenue leakages and increase profit-
ability. However most revenue assurance systems have certain limitations and it
is important to identify the system that best suits your unique business require-
ments. This whitepaper discusses an essential checklist that can help CSPs
identify the most suitable revenue assurance system.
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White Paper The Essential Revenue Assurance Checklist

Executive Summary
A dollar saved is a dollar earned. This adage is especially relevant to telecom operators as they struggle to cope with
increased competition, reduced time-to market and the ever-evolving technology landscape. Telecom operators can and
do demonstrate immediate financial success by tackling the ever increasing loss of revenue through leakages. With
revenue and cost leakages occurring across the operator’s business, it is imperative to focus on identifying the source of
these leakages, quantifying their magnitude and addressing them in a holistic manner. Operators world over are in the
process of implementing revenue assurance initiatives. Unfortunately a majority of revenue assurance initiatives typically
fall short of delivering expected value - both short-term and long-term to a carrier. The success of a revenue assurance
initiative mandates the existence of certain key success ingredients. These success factors affect not just the choice of the
solution but the choice of the vendor as well. In this paper we attempt to provide a checklist that an operator can use to
select an efficient revenue assurance system and a dependable revenue assurance vendor. Absence of any of these key
criteria will reduce the chances of success for the revenue assurance program.

Checklist for an efficient Revenue Assurance System

The following are the key objectives of implementing a solution for invoice verification:
Flexible & Configurable Workflow
Hands-off integration with Network Elements
SS7-to-Invoice Verification
Inter-carrier Traffic Verification & Analysis
Facilities Verification
Test Call Generation

Checklist for a dependable Revenue Assurance system vendor

Product Knowledge
Partnership Approach Focused on Creating Value
Implementation Track Record
Broad Service Offerings around the Core Product
Accountability

Introduction
Revenue Assurance has finally caught the attention of the top management of telecommunication operators worldwide,
and the reason is obvious. Different studies conducted across the world report that average revenue leakages amount to
14% of an operator’s reported revenue, with non-fraud losses accounting for a whopping 86% of all revenue leakages.
Effective plugging of these leakages would mean that an operator can improve its top line by as much as 12% with
minimal capital expenses. It is obvious that an operator can demonstrate immediate financial gain through Revenue
Assurance initiatives, gains that contribute to long term, ongoing cost effective operations. What is not obvious is that
these gains can be realized only through a well thought through and efficiently implemented Revenue Assurance system.
The success of a Revenue Assurance system depends on the functionalities of the system chosen but equally importantly,
the credentials of the vendor chosen. In this paper we attempt to provide a checklist that an operator can use to select an
efficient Revenue Assurance system and a dependable Revenue Assurance vendor.

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White Paper The Essential Revenue Assurance Checklist

An efficient Revenue Assurance System provides:

1. Flexible & Configurable Workflow
Every operator’s operational environment is unique. While the elements of a network are broadly the same, each operator
chooses to implement procedures, policies and workflow in line with its unique business requirements. This workflow
usually has evolved over a period of time and reflects organizational learning. An Revenue Assurance system that
mandates a predefined workflow that aims to change an operator’s existing workflow is destined for disaster. Operator
must thus look for Revenue Assurance systems that have an ability to build a workflow that reflects its existing procedures
and also has the flexibility to configure new workflows as it evolves and improves.

2. Hands-off Integration with Network Elements

An end-to-end Revenue Assurance system plugs into various network elements, from SS7 probes all the way up to the
billing system. It must have an ability to interface with a variety of support systems and network elements that enable sit
to process usage information, track discrepancies and identify potential revenue leakages. However it is important to
remember that it is the Revenue Assurance system that is the new comer to the OSS/BSS chain. It is crucial that the
Revenue Assurance system can integrate with other elements without the need to make changes to these elements’
configurations and setups or compromising their integrity. An Revenue Assurance system that provides for hands-off
integration is therefore an obvious choice. Hands-off integration through creation of element-specific data sources is the
recommended approach for Revenue Assurance systems to integrate into an existing OSS/BSS chain.

3. SS7-to-Invoice Verification
It is important that a Revenue Assurance system provides a subscriber billing verification capability to ensure that the
operator is billing its subscribers accurately for all billable usage. The Revenue Assurance system must collect, collate, rate
and reconcile subscriber usage data across billing, rating, mediation, network switches, SS7 and gateways. By
automatically rating and reconciling usage data taken from the network, SS7 or mediation with the actual invoices
available from the retail billing system or even the printer output, the carrier is guaranteed that all billable usage is indeed
billed. For maximum flexibility, the Revenue Assurance system must provide for an ability to drill-down capability to
isolate a problem from the invoice level down to the usage (CDR) level. Additionally, the Revenue Assurance system must
provide for a sophisticated rating engine.

a. Sophisticated Rating Engine

An effective Revenue Assurance system not only tracks and identifies the discrepancies in usage as reported by
OSS/BSS systems but also ensures that usage is billed at appropriate rates. The Revenue Assurance system must be
able to validate charges against rates and inventory of installed/activated equipment, leased facilities and circuits.
This requires a sophisticated rating engine that is able to accommodate a wide variety of charging models.
Operators must demand and verify that the Revenue Assurance system has an independent and sophisticated
rating engine that allows for configuration of all types of rate plans and charging models and do so with ease.

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White Paper The Essential Revenue Assurance Checklist

b. CDR Drill Down & Dispute Management

Identifying that there is a discrepancy between actual usage and usage billed is only half the battle. It is also
important for operators to pin point what causes the discrepancy and therefore be able to fix it. Operators must
look for invoice-to-event drill down capability in their Revenue Assurance system. This enables the operators to
identify what element within the system is the cause of the discrepancy and therefore take steps to fix it. In the
interconnect settlement scenario, this drill down capability must be linked with a dispute management capability.
Operators must be able to initiate disputes from identified invoice discrepancies and follow through by tracking
and resolving them, thus allowing faster settlement of disputes and reducing time to cash.

4. Inter-carrier Traffic Verification & Analysis

An effective Revenue Assurance system will provide for Inter-carrier traffic verification to ensure that the operator pays
only for actual traffic sent to the partner’s network (payables invoice) and at the same time ensure accuracy of data
passing into the inter-carrier billing system so that the operator can accurately bill its interconnection partner (receivables
invoice). More importantly the Revenue Assurance system must not only identify revenue leakages but also provide for
traffic analysis and trend to predict potential bottlenecks, failures and hence revenue leakages. Further, such traffic
analysis is useful in the context of inter-carrier arrangements as a practical view of traffic patterns and trends can be used
in negotiating profitable carrier contracts.

5. Facilities Verification
An end-to-end Revenue Assurance system verifies if each feature or service provisioned and activated for a customer, is
used and is being billed for. This is usually achieved through the process of triangulation that uses data from services and
features provisioned in the network, service usage data available from the network (including SS7) and those allocated to
customers in the billing system. One primary benefit of such triangulation is identification of stranded infrastructure –
infrastructure that is deployed but is not used. Operators can thus ensure cost optimization of capital expenditure. Thus,
operators must look for Revenue Assurance system’s capability to verify facilities utilization.

6. Test Call Generation

ROC™ Revenue Assurance not only tracks current revenue leakages but provides for tools for proactively ensuring revenue
assurance for new services before their implementation. ROC Revenue Assurance is capable of taking advantage of
revenue leakage data already available, provide statistical information that help build optimum test cases and then
performs an auto-reconciliation between the test calls and usage output from the various systems in the billing chain, to
identify the areas of revenue leakage. Clearly, operators must look for a comprehensive Revenue Assurance system which
can work with Test Call Generators to achieve the desired results.

The schematic below presents the various systems in the BSS/OSS eco-system and how an effective Revenue Assurance
system would impact each of them.

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White Paper The Essential Revenue Assurance Checklist

Intra-carrier Inter-carrier

Switch to Bill Inter-carrier Billing

Reconcile all types of identified Validate interconnect

switch to bill discrepancies invoices for their integrity

Inventory
Effectively identify stranded
assets and stop revenue losses
Network
Disputes
Swiftly file the available
information and resolve
interconnect disputes

Enable switches to accurately

record all billable events
Provisioning
Synchronize switch, billing,
ordering and provisioning
systems
Inter-carrier Terms
Enter into profitable
agreements with
interconnect partners
Network

Swiftly validate the need to

Billing & Rating expand existing facilities

Easily maintain complex pricing

plans without losing revenues

OSS

Verify operational information

across multiple OSS systems

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White Paper The Essential Revenue Assurance Checklist

A dependable Revenue Assurance system vendor demonstrates:

Decision as critical as sourcing a revenue assurance product must create and enhance value to a carrier. Vendor financial
health, size & local presence, vendor stability, quality and commitment are paramount and matter a great deal. Certain
other key success ingredients of such a decision are as follows:

Integrated • Does the vendor have an integrated and evolving product portfolio
Product Portfolio to address different aspects of revenue maximization?
& Roadmap • Does the vendor’s product architecture allow for introduction of newer
modules?
• Does the vendor’s solution encourage current profit maximization and
provides a roadmap for sustained profitable growth?

Product • Does the vendor have staff with requisite expertise in revenue assurance?
Knowledge • Is the implementation done by the vendor or a third-party?
• Does the vendor follow any quality process/ procedure?
• Is the partnership approach focused on creating value?
• Has the vendor mitigated all the long-term investment risks?
• Has the vendor’s product transformed customers’ business vision to reality?
• Is the vendor just dumping the product and moving onto the next sale?

Implementation • Number of customers for the vendor’s revenue assurance product?

Track Record • Is the vendor’s revenue assurance product in use by these customers?
• Is the vendor’s product a strategic asset or a peripheral?

Broad Service • Does the vendor’s consulting services recommend solutions to business
Offerings challenges?
Around The Core • Does the vendor offer product customization, product training, integration,
Product implementation and support services to suit customer specifications?

Accountability • Does the vendor go beyond the conventional measures to mitigate

implementation risks?
• Is the vendor both the product developer as well as the implementer?
• Does the vendor offer risk sharing?

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White Paper The Essential Revenue Assurance Checklist

ROC Revenue Assurance – The Revenue Assurance Solution from Subex

Subex’s pioneering ROC Revenue Assurance enhances the entire Revenue Assurance operations – for both, the intra and
inter-carrier environments. ROC Revenue Assurance’s flexible modules are designed to identify and quantify issues such as
unbilled or incorrectly billed usage, discrepancies between multiple BSS/ OSS, interconnect billing discrepancies,
erroneous system configurations and setup, in order to present an overall view into the revenue leaks that are occurring
within a carrier. It is designed to capture data from a wide variety of sources like the network, SS7, inventory, provisioning,
mediation, billing, and rating and reconciles them in order to pinpoint revenue leaks. ROC Revenue Assurance’s powerful
and customizable rating engine attaches financial indicators to the identified discrepancies.

Some of ROC Revenue Assurance’s unique benefits include:

Comprehensive • Comprehensive telecom revenue assurance to detect intra carrier

revenue assurance revenue leakages across the revenue chain
workflow • Interconnect billing verification module to reduce interconnect losses

Fully integrated with • Standards-based, open and extendible APIs to easily fit into the existing
robust interfaces infrastructure
• Supports multiple data sources such as Switches, Mediation, etc

Easy customization to • Customizable solution with built-in best practices - built to last long as
business processes business evolves
• Subex ’s Implementation & Support team maps ROC Revenue Assurance
functionality to your business processes

Extensible architecture • Flexible and modular architecture that grows as business grows
on a scalable platform • Scalable to process millions of data records and thousands of interconnect
bills

Designed to be • Supports voice, data, content and convergent communication services

future-proof • Supports wireline, GRPS and 3G network environments

Subex’s customization and integration services allow ROC Revenue Assurance to be tailored to suit the operator’s unique
needs and be integrated with varied network elements – switch, mediation devices, SS7 probes, prepaid platforms, billing
and customer care systems. In addition to providing world class software solutions, Subex assists customers with the
design and implementation of its Revenue Assurance strategies. Subex’s support and maintenance programs are
designed to meet 24X7 support needs. Subex’s regional support centers, located in US and UK are well positioned to
support the Americas and Europe while its global support center in India is well suited to cover the Asian and African
markets.

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Subex Limited. 2017. All rights reserved. Although every endeavour has been made to ensure that the information contained within this document is up to date and accurate, Subex Limited cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracy or error in the information contained within this document. 09062016.
About Subex
Subex Ltd. is a leading telecom analytics solutions provider, enabling a digital future for global telcos.
Founded in 1992, Subex has spent over 25 years in enabling 3/4th of the largest 50 CSPs globally achieve
competitive advantage. By leveraging data which is gathered across networks, customers, and systems
coupled with its domain knowledge and the capabilities of its core solutions, Subex helps CSPs to drive new
business models, enhance customer experience and optimise enterprises.

Subex leverages its award-winning analytics solutions in areas such as Revenue Assurance, Fraud Man-
agement, Asset Assurance and Partner Management, and complements them through its newer solutions
such as IoT Security. Subex also offers scalable Managed Services and Business Consulting services.

Subex has more than 300 installations across 90+ countries.

Pipeline Innovation Award 2017 for Global Telecoms Business Winner of Telecoms
Innovation in Managed Services and Innovation Award Awarded Global Carriers Award 2015 - 'Advances Awarded Best Global
Security & Assurance category 2017,2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011 Awards 2015 in B/OSS' category Product/Services

Received Global Market

BSS&OSS Latin America Share Leaderin Financial
Best Fraud Prevention Assurance Award 2012
Project Award 2016

Subex Limited Subex, Inc Subex (UK) Ltd Subex (Asia Pacific)
Pte. Limited
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